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The doctoral thesis of noted theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was already one of the most requested items on the University of Cambridge's online repository.
When it was made available free to download on Monday to mark Open Access Week, such was the interest that the website crashed and was intermittently inaccessible during the day.
Completed in 1966 when Hawking was 24, "Properties of Expanding Universes" explores ideas about the origins of the universe that have resonated through the scientist’s career.
The opening page of Stephen Hawking's PhD when he was a 24-year-old.
Hawking said he hoped making his thesis available to all would "inspire people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet; to wonder about our place in the universe and to try and make sense of the cosmos."
Previously, people had to pay 65 pounds (86 US dollars) to the university library to read Hawking's PhD in full and they have to scan a copy or physically go to the library to get access to it, the BBC reported.
(AP)
